TODAY'S LETTERS: Election Coverage And Medill

By: E&P Staff Readers wrote in today about the Medill dean and lots of electioncoverage.


Lavine Will Stay On As Medill Dean
I am not a Luddite. But I'm retired and I've been on both sides of the phone---journalism and PR/Marketing---and I read with dismay the story saying that the new Dean of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern, John Lavine, will stay on to be allowed to push his curriculum of Integrated Marketing Communications.

If you check the student body at Medill you will find that there are more young people learning how to sell a story than how to tell a story---more people in IMC than in straight journalism courses.

Whatever happened to J-schools teaching journalism---not PR or marketing? If you want to learn the latter, then take courses to that end. But, no matter how much Lavine tries to convince people about his new era of journalism, this journalist believes he is corrupting the essential curriculum. I'm not against adapting to a new digital world---of using several platforms by which to tell a story. But telling the story is one thing---using journalism as a marketing tool is another.

Have we not seen "advocacy journalism", then "shouting journalism", then "we report---you decide" journalism on our airwaves? Must we get away from the very basics of fair and honest story-telling that I was taught so many years ago at Medill? In the 60's, when I gained my Masters, there was pretty much an unwritten "firewall" between the two regimens.

Dean Lavine is trying to break that down, saying "there's a new world out there." Of course there is---all the more reason for journalists to be journalists---not masters of marketing. In "the old days" you "sold" your story to your editor. You didn't need Integrated Marketing Communications to muddy the waters. I spoke with a reporter from a major journalism review who had done the IMC story and interviewed Lavine. That bright young reporter admitted he didn't know what Lavine was trying to achieve---or why.
He just reported the story.

I would hope that, by 2009, the faculty at Medill will have the strength to say to Lavine---and NU President Henry Bienen:
"Nice try---but let's get back to basics."


Mike Eisgrau
Medill MSJ '64
Englewood, Florida


The Morning After: Press Ponders McCain Win, Clinton Upset -- 'Dewey Defeats Truman' Revisited?
Let's get it right. The Reverend Martin Luther King spearheaded the Civil Rights Movement. Lyndon Johnson did not, as TV reporters have it, "pass" the Civil Rights Act. He signed it after Congress passed it under the enormous political pressure exerted by Mr. Johnson. The Civil Rights Act would not have been possible without either man. It is totally wrong for anyone in the black community to dismiss the Johnson role as inconsequential in comparison to that of the Reverend King.

As the chief of the special publications unit of the U.S. Information Agency at that time, I produced the work "We Shall Overcome" delineating the steps toward enactment of the Civil Rights Act. I also produced "Nine From Little Rock," a tribute to young ladies whose contribution to the civil rights movement was so remarkable. It is a pity that so many today have no real concept of the work of the many who made the Act possible.

In this era, I prepared a book, "Martin Luther King: Man of Peace" for distribution by USIA to readers abroad (USIA publications, under mandate from Congress, could not be distributed within the U.S.). The publication was ready for printing when word came from the USIA top that the project was to be cancelled; the time was not right "politically." My conclusion, with any confirmation from the agency leadership, was that the Reverend Mr. King's opposition to the war in Vietnam had become a thorn in the President's side.

I had earlier written and produced the book Legacy of a President, about the slain JFK, which is still on sale in several other countries. There was no political opposition to that book.

Wes Pedersen
Chevy Chase, MD


Hillary Clinton?s victory speech on January 8th gave me hope again; women may actually be able to control this election. I hope their ranks grow to enormous proportions.

A woman will be elected President of the United States. That?s a given. Women vote, die in war, go into space, direct news bureaus, are senators, bishops and Governors. It is exactly because of the strength and commitment and unrelenting struggle of women like Hillary Clinton and the hundreds of thousands of women like her, that the current generations of young women have the opportunities they do today.

In the 1960?s the want ads in newspapers were divided into two sections, jobs for men and jobs for women. Women were forbidden from even applying, especially it the job implied director or editor. A generation of women put an end to that! Women will be president of the United States. And if not Hillary, who? If not now, when?

I appreciate your coverage on the 2008 presidential race, including Hillary's surprise comeback, and the emotional moment that inspired this song of mine:

My advice for Hillary is contained in this song I wrote and recorded as a way of capturing her moment:

If at first you don't Succeed Cry, Cry Again



Keep up the inspiring articles.

Bruce L. Thiessen, Ph.D.
Bakersfield, California



Getting Out the Barack Vote: Did Race Bias Cost Obama A Win in New Hampshire?
What an utter load of unsubstantiated drivel this article was. If anything you are showing a racist bias of your own.

If the media had one grain of integrity & honestly it would admit that it didn't poll the last critical days of this race in NH & crowned Obama based on insufficient data. Instead of fessing up to the laziness, theories of racism are tossed up to deflect from the utter failure of the media.

You have no facts whatsoever to back up your ridiculous assertion. In fact, given the demographics of NH it's obvious that white voters as a whole were not racist otherwise Obama could not have faired as well as he did.

Gosh I think that I should write your paper & file a formal complaint.
How on earth this got past the editors speaks poorly for Editor & Publisher.

Gar

"There is no poll question we can find that can truly measure this phenomenon. . . ." "

My understanding is that there is a clear differential between automated polls (polls where the question is clearly done by a recording, "push one if for candidate A, etc.") and polls conducted by living pollsters. The Bradley Effect is minimized in the autos. So find the info on auto vs. live numbers for Barack. If no difference, racial effect unlikely.

Pat Ar

How AP Made the Early Call in Obama vs. Clinton Tussle in New Hampshire
I can see the fabled Mike Royko high-fiving his drinking buddies in media heaven if, in fact. The New Hampshire voters fibbed (lied) about who they supported, either before or after voting.

Royko famously encouraged voters years ago to unite in a big lie to pollsters/media mongrels stalking folks on election day. he, like many of us, was appalled that the TV stalkers were reporting the winners and losers before voting had closed in many sections of the country, thus thwarting the election process. Gotta love it.

Gary Galloway
Miami